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Definition of recusancy in English:

recusancy

noun

‘However his continuing recusancy could only have increased the tense relationship with authority which his seemingly seditious plays had instigated.’

‘Educated at home by Catholic tutors, Donne went at the age of 11 to Hart Hall, Oxford (now Hertford College), favoured by Catholics because it had no chapel, so that recusancy attracted less notice.’

‘It is noticeable that Catholic recusancy was generally stronger in eastern than western Wales; it may have been easier to maintain conservative dissent in the less effectively structured marcher region.’

‘For the religious group that went in a few years from dominance to recusancy, to being a persecuted minority in its own country, life must have seemed full of sudden reversals and paradoxes.’

‘In 1606, Shakespeare's daughter Susanna was cited on suspicion of recusancy, but the charge was dropped.’